June 04, 2020
Today, Thursday, June 4, is the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, during which the Chinese government killed an unknown number—hundreds or thousands—of protesters who gathered peacefully in the center of Beijing to demand democratic reforms. The student-led demonstrations called for freedom of speech and of the press. Instead, protesters were the recipients of a brutal military crackdown that set the stage for a consolidation of government power that continues to repress dissent to this day. By contrast, the United States Constitution guarantees freedom of expression under the First Amendment—but the recent deployment of authoritarian tactics to suppress peaceful protests around the country has shown how fragile this right can be. The First Amendment, as written by James Madison, reads:
You've heard it said before, but it bears repeating: In flagrant defiance of the right to free assembly, Trump on Monday tear-gassed peaceful protesters in Washington, DC's Lafayette Square to make way for a photo op. Yesterday, he violated the First Amendment even further by authorizing federal police to block clergy's access to St. John's Episcopal Church—effectively "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion. Across the country, cities have enacted curfews, ostensibly to reduce property damage but in effect impinging on "the right of the people peaceably to assemble." In Oakland and New York last night, Mother Jones staff captured scenes of Americans risking arrest to practice their First Amendment rights. Two-hundred forty-four years after this nation's founding, the self-evident truth is that, as long as mass incarceration and police brutality persist, Black Americans do not possess the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that the slave-owning Thomas Jefferson laid forth in the Declaration of Independence. It's no wonder the powers that be are ignoring the documents on which this nation was founded. Those documents are on the people's, not the president's, side. —Abigail Weinberg 
"We as people of faith are here to stand with you and for you." BY ALI BRELAND
BY PEMA LEVY
MOTHER JONES STAFF
BY JAMES WEST AND MARK HELENOWSKI
BY DAN SPINELLI
Your OB-GYN could be one of them. BY MARISA ENDICOTT
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SOME GOOD NEWS, FOR ONCE
As our reporters chronicled, protesters in both the Bay Area and New York City violated curfews last night to continue calling for justice and an end to police violence (or maybe just an end to the police, full stop). The photos and videos are heartening. “The scene provided a striking contrast to days of images dominated by police aggression,” we noted of uprisings in New York. (I found particular joy in a dance party that broke out here in Oakland three hours after curfew.) Combine this with the fact that, in the past few days, the protests have led to change—and things that have long been pushed for—across the country. Confederate statues, as our own Camille Squires wrote, are coming down in the South. Lawmakers are pushing to end qualified immunity. Former President Obama on a Zoom livestream called for a message of hope when looking at the protestors. “There is a change in mindset that’s taking place,” he said. He spoke to the “broad coalition” we’ve seen in the streets. He cautioned against comparing it to the uprisings in 1968. And perhaps for all of us, even if the former president’s message can feel like it’s coming from a distance, there’s a lesson there. Look at the dancing. Look at the signs. Look at the togetherness. Do not squeeze your eyes to narrowly view this moment in the way the faux-embattled white intellectuals of the late 1960s saw rebellion. One of the most famous documents of the tumultuous demonstrations in 1968 is Norman Mailer’s bombastic, ambivalent, and hyperbolic Miami and the Siege of Chicago. It has its place. Yet it doesn’t feel like it says enough about what’s happening now. I think the images of last night are a better document about what America—that word Mailer loved to toss around—can be. —Jacob Rosenberg Did you enjoy this newsletter? Help us out by forwarding it to a friend or sharing it on Facebook and Twitter.
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